


Balefire

by Rainne



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Returns, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Joey is a stress chef, Mary Sue, Mary Sue Big Bang, Mexican Character, Mutant Powers, Original Character-centric, What Have I Done, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 16:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5170073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joey was an ordinary, if overworked, grad student doing her schoolwork and raising her nephew. It wasn’t her fault Captain America moved in upstairs. And it <i>definitely</i> wasn’t her fault when she accidentally started feeding burritos and tres leches to the guy called James who started staying in that apartment while Cap was away. So okay, maybe it WAS her fault when she started throwing fire at the military guys who came after him. James was a nice guy, after all, and a vet; he didn’t need this crap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Mary Sue Big Bang for existing and giving me something to do besides all the things I am supposed to be doing.  
> Thanks to Evren for the art for this story.  
> Thanks to citymusings and secondalto for the beta reading and cheerleading and all around awesomeness.

When Josefina Mendez unlocks the door of her Brooklyn apartment and finds the living room spotlessly clean and full of the smell of dinner cooking, she knows immediately that something is wrong.  "Robby?" she calls out, dropping her backpack on the sofa and kicking the front door shut behind herself. "Hey, Rob, where are you?"

Her fourteen-year-old nephew, Roberto, comes strolling in from the kitchen, a towel slung casually over his shoulder. "Hey, Aunt J," he greets her easily, coming over to kiss her cheek before heading back toward the kitchen. "Dinner's almost ready.  I made tacos."

"Roberto Colón," Joey says, grabbing him by the shirt sleeve. "What did you do."

Robby winces. "Nothing bad, Aunt J, I promise," he says.  "I mean. You know. Not on purpose, anyway."

"Dios mío," Joey mutters. "What did you _do_?"

"It wasn't my fault!" Robby replies, getting agitated. "They were messing with this girl and I told them to cut it out!"

Joey sighs. "Oh, Robby. How many days did you get this time?"

"Just one, because Mr. Golovko came around the corner and saw it start, so he spoke up for me," Robby says. "But it's zero tolerance, so they had to give me something. But Mr. Golovko said he'd go around and talk to my teachers and see if they'd let me make the work up, so my grades won't suffer. There's a math test."

Joey rubs at her temples. "Robby, baby, you have to stop doing this," she says softly.

"I can't stop, Tía," he says softly. "I can't just ignore it when people are doing bad things."

Joey sighs. "Of course you can't," she murmurs.  She reaches out and puts her hand on his shoulder, pulling him in close for a hug.  "You're a good boy, Robby. I just need you to stop getting into fights. Please. You don't have nobody backing you up, and I worry that one day you're going to end up in a fight you can't win.  I already lost your mama, you can't make me lose you, too. Okay?"

He hugs her back tightly. "Okay, Tía," he says softly.  Then he lets her go, turning back to the kitchen. "I still made tacos," he says.  "Come eat."

*

Living in New York post-Manhattan Incident (that is, since the sky opened up and those _pinches_ aliens came out of the big hole and tore everything up) means living in the shadow of the Avengers, and Joey knows that better than anyone; there are only two apartments in the old brownstone building where she and Robby live, and Captain ("Please, call me Steve") America inhabits in the upstairs one.   Of course, that's when he's home; he only moved in after all that business in Washington, and he's never been there much. Since the Avengers dropped a whole Sokovian city out of the sky, though, he's almost never there at all.  Which is why Joey notices when someone takes up residence up there.

At first, she thought it was Steve, back from wherever; but Steve usually checks in when he gets home from wherever he's been, to see if she needs anything and ask how Robby's doing in school.  By the third day of Someone Being Up There, Joey hasn't seen Steve, and so she knows it can't be him.  She wonders if it's one of the other Avengers, but that seems kind of silly; why would they be in Brooklyn? Tony Stark has that big tower in Manhattan; any of the Avengers would just go there.

Except, of course, that they might not; Joey doesn't have the whole story, but she's pretty sure Steve doesn't get along with Tony Stark very well.  If Steve doesn't, maybe the others don't as well.  

By the fifth day of Someone Being Up There, Joey's natural curiosity is burning her up from the inside.  She needs a break anyway - she's a graduate student, and between writing papers and working on her personal research and grading student work she stays crazy busy - so she decides to make a cake.  _Tres leches_ is Robby's favorite, so she double checks that she has all the ingredients and starts baking.

If it's accidentally a bigger cake than she usually makes, well, shit happens, no?

When the cake comes out of the oven, she soaks it in the milk and cream and sticks it in the refrigerator, then goes back to her grading.  The timer goes off just about the time she finishes the last paper, and she goes back into the kitchen.  The cake is good and cold, and fortunately not wet (the last one, ay, she has no idea what she did, but they had to eat it with spoons) so she cuts it in half and puts it on two different plates.  She ices both halves, then puts their half back in their refrigerator and heads out the back door into the shared yard space.

She trots up the wooden stairs to Steve's back door and knocks confidently.  When there is no response, she knocks again.  She knows damn good and well that Whoever It Is is there; she heard them walking around not ten minutes ago. There's still no response, so she knocks a third time. "Hey, Steve, I know you're home, _amigo_ , I can hear you stomping around up there like a _luchador_. I made you a cake. Come get it; it needs to go in the refrigerator."

There's a long pause, and then she hears the footsteps coming through the kitchen to the back door.  The deadbolt lock clicks, and the door swings open, and it's not Steve standing there.  It's some dude she's never seen before, almost as tall as Steve but dark where Steve is blond, scruffy where Steve is always clean-shaven, and sort of slouchy and angry-looking.  She holds out the cake. "Hey, I'm Joey, I live downstairs.  I made this for Steve," she says. "Is he home?"

"No," the man says, and his voice is totally at odds with his look; it's soft and almost tentative.  "He, uh. He's not here."

"Okay, well, you take it, then. It's _tres leches_ , that's my nephew's favorite. Keep it in the refrigerator, okay?  You know when Steve's going to be back?"

The man shakes his head.  Joey shrugs. "Okay. Well, like I said, I'm Joey, and my nephew is Roberto. If you need anything, you let us know, okay?  We like Steve pretty good, so we help each other out."

The man nods, and then he gives Joey a soft, almost tentative smile. "Thank you," he says.  He finally reaches out with his right hand and takes the cake, keeping his left carefully in his pocket.  Joey makes no comment and pretends not to notice.

" _De nada,_ " Joey replies. "I gotta get back to studying. _Buenas noches._ "

"Good night," the man says, stepping back and closing the door gently.

It's not til about half an hour later that Joey realizes she never got the guy's name.

*

Now that she's made contact with the guy, Joey starts to notice him coming and going from the apartment more often. He dresses like a hobo - grungy-looking hoodies and stained, torn jeans and always, always a cap over his hair, pulled down low over his eyes. She has a lot of relatives who served and she knows what PTSD looks like, and she knows what traumatized veterans look like, and she recognizes the stiffness with which he holds his left arm and guesses it to be a prosthetic. 

She warns Robby about him.  Not that he's at the house so much - he's taking four AP humanities classes and a dual enrollment math, so he spends a lot of time with study groups or at the library - but when he is there, she wants him to be careful.  "You remember your Uncle Jorge," she tells him, "and how jumpy and weird he was when he came home from Iraq?  I feel like that guy upstairs with Steve, he's got the same kind of problems. So you be careful about him, okay, _mijo_?"

"Yeah, I'll be careful," Robby says. "I seen him a couple days ago cutting through the alley. He's got mad skills; he jumped the fence from where he was flat-footed, standing still."

Joey nods. "Special Forces," she guesses. "You watch out for him, Robby. I don't think he's a bad guy, not at all, but if you startle him, it could be bad for you just by accident, you know?" She throws her arm around his neck and pulls him down to kiss his cheek. "Now go eat your dinner, I made tamales."

It's the middle of the afternoon, about a week after that conversation with Robby, and Joey is in the middle of grading freshman midterms, when there's a soft knock at the back door of the apartment.  It can only really be one person, so Joey gets up and goes to answer the door.

Sure enough, it's Steve's Friend, and he's holding her plate. "I, uh. I meant to bring this back sooner," he says, looking sheepish.

"Hey, no problem," Joey says, taking the plate and stepping back from the door.  The guy looks thin - thinner than he did when she saw him before.  She wonders if he's eating right. "Come inside," she tells him, hearing her mother's voice come out of her own mouth with a mixture of amusement and despair. "You're hungry, let me fix you something to eat."

He shakes his head. "No, I'm okay."

She glares at him. "Was it a question? No, it was not a question. I _said_ you come in here and let me fix you some food."  She points at the kitchen table and stalks away from the door, muttering in Spanish.  It takes barely any time at all to fix him a plate of food, mostly because she keeps the refrigerator stocked with stuff to make burritos at all times. Robby has hit the age where he's growing like a weed and eating all the time, and if there's nothing quick and easy to fix, he'll default to Hot Pockets.  She hates the way they smell.

When she drops the plate onto the table in front of Steve's Friend, it's full of burritos and refried beans. "You want some cheese?" she asks. "Some people like the beans better with cheese on 'em."

He blinks at her. "Uh. Sure? I guess?"

She grabs the little bag of shredded cheese and covers his beans with it, then tosses the bag back into the refrigerator.  "Eat!" she commands.

He eats. Joey gives a single, satisfied nod, and pulls a package of ground beef out of the freezer, tossing it into the sink to thaw.  She waits until he's about halfway through the food before sitting down and eyeballing him across the table. "Steve doesn't know you're here, does he?"

Steve's Friend - and she really needs to get the guy to give her a name - looks up at her with a face like a startled rabbit. His left hand jerks like he's instinctively going for a weapon, and Joey holds up a hand to calm him. "It's okay," she says. "I understand.  Look, I got a bunch of uncles and cousins who served, okay? I know what post-combat looks like. I see it all over you. There's no shame in it, okay, _amigo_?"  She shakes her head at him. "Steve doesn't know you're here, but you're still his friend, and I'm pretty sure he'd be okay with you being here, or you wouldn't be. Am I right?"

There's a long, tense moment before Steve's Friend finally relaxes just a little bit and gives her a small nod.  Joey nods back. "Okay. Then me and you, we got no problems, see?  But look. What I told you, when I brought the cake? I meant it. We watch out for each other here. Steve, he's a good guy. He watches out for my Robby, when he's here.  That's my nephew. He's got a big heart, but he's got a big mouth, too.  Steve helped Robby out of a scrape one time, and ever since then, he checks on us, he asks how's Robby doing in school, do I need anything, that kind of stuff, you know?  And I think if Steve knew you were here, he'd want me to check up on you, too.  You see?"

He's quiet for a very long time before he speaks. "He gets into scrapes?" he asks. "Your boy, I mean."

"Lord, yes," Joey says, sitting back in her chair and rolling her eyes toward heaven.  "That boy can't let anything go if he thinks somebody's getting bullied or being treated unfairly. Most of the time it's all right; he stops the little kids picking on each other and stuff like that. But every once in awhile he steps up to somebody that's big enough to step back."  She shakes her head. "One of these days, I swear, that boy's going to end up in a fight he can't win."

And much to Joey's surprise, Steve's Friend starts laughing. It's a rusty sort of sound, like he hasn't had much to laugh about for the last hundred years or so, but it's a laugh all the same. "Sounds like somebody I used to know," he explains, shaking his head and turning back to his food. "I'll keep an eye on him for you."

"Thanks," Joey says softly.  She tilts her head just a little bit. "Will you tell me your name?" she asks.

He's quiet for a long time, filling his mouth up with beans, and she's not sure he's going to do it. She's all set to change the subject when he says, very softly, "It's James."

She gives him a smile. "Thank you for telling me," she says. "I like to know my friends' names."  She gets up and goes to the refrigerator, getting ingredients together to make a burrito for herself.  She comes back to the table with it and they eat together in silence.  When he's finished, he gets up and carries his plate to the sink, rinsing it off carefully. He reaches for the soap, but she stops him. "I got a dishwasher," she says. "It's okay."

He nods once, then turns toward the door. "Thanks for the food."

"Any time, Jaime," she replies, giving his name the Spanish pronunciation.  He blinks at her and then, much to her surprise, he cracks a little smile.  She smiles back. "Don't be a stranger, okay? You get hungry or you need something - even if you just need to be around people - you come on down. Okay?"

There's a long moment before James nods slightly. "Okay," he says. And then he's gone.

*

For the next few weeks, everything is quiet.  James comes by every so often - she is pretty sure just for human contact - and she feeds him. He meets Robby and the two of them bond in a silent sort of way that Joey doesn't really understand, but is grateful for all the same, because Robby needs more good male role models in his life, and James is a good one, even if he is kind of a weird _gringo._  

Joey goes on about her life as usual: attending class, teaching classes, grading papers.  And then, one afternoon, as she leaves the _mercado_ and heads up the street to the _carnicería,_ all of her internal alarms go off.  Something is not right in her neighborhood, and she knows it.  She doesn't stop moving, but she raises her head, putting her phone in her pocket and looking around.  She gives a nod to Maria Lopez, who works at the Washateria, and to Chester Abraham, the little old African-American man who always sits on his fire escape, and she skips the _carnicería_ even though she needs ground beef and heads directly for home.

By the time she's gotten there, she knows what the problem is.  There are too many damn white men in the neighborhood.  It's not just white _people_ , even though a sudden incursion of any variety of white people would have gotten noticed in this extremely diverse neighborhood no matter what.  It's white _men_ , specifically, and a particular _kind_ of white men who often mean nothing but trouble for folks who are minding their business.

They are white men who look like police or FBI, and that is very, very bad news in a neighborhood like this. 

She can't even figure out why they're here. the neighborhood may be a little bit shabby and full of different kinds of folks, but there isn't a drug problem here; the kids hanging out on the corners are not dealing and there's very seldom any violence.  So why the hell are there cops - especially white cops - randomly wandering up and down the streets like they're trying to blend in?

Joey pulls her cell phone out once she gets into the apartment and she calls Robby.  "Where are you?" she asks him.

"I'm at the library," he says. "Just about to leave. Why?"

"Can you see your uncle Tonio's house? Is he at home?"

"Yeah, I think so. Auntie J, what's going on?"

She says, "I want you to go to over to Tonio's and stay there until I call you. I don't know what's going on, but something's about to go down and I don't want you in the middle of it.  Get over there and stay indoors, stay safe, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Robby replies. "I'm going now."  He stays on the phone with her until he's inside Tonio's house, and he hands the phone to Tonio so that she can explain what she saw.  Tonio agrees with her that it sounds like something's about to go down, and he promises to keep Robby safe until whatever it is gets finished.

With that handled, Joey makes a couple more phone calls to some people she knows up and down the street who have kids, and she watches out the window through the filmy curtains as the news starts to spread up the block and women begin calling their men and boys indoors.  Slowly, casually, the street begins to grow empty of brown and black faces.

And then Joey remembers.  James.

She goes out the back door and up the back stairs to bang on the door.  When he opens it, she says, "I just wanted to warn you that something's about to go down tonight, so you don't get surprised."

He narrows his eyes at her. "What are you talking about?"

She explains about the sudden influx of unfamiliar militarized white men into a neighborhood where they don't belong.  He, much to her surprise, immediately begins questioning her.  What did they look like, how did they act, what were they wearing, did she speak to any of them or hear any of them speak?  In response, she takes him through his apartment to the front window, pulling the curtain back just a tiny bit so that he can look.  One of the men is standing on the corner across the street, leaning against the stop sign.

James pulls her back from the window and shakes his head at her. "You must have the best danger radar of any civilian I ever saw," he says. "I'm pretty sure you just saved a bunch of people's lives.  Those aren't cops.  They're HYDRA soldiers."

"HYDRA?!" Joey exclaims. "What the fuck is HYDRA doing in this neighborhood?"

In response, he takes his left hand out of his pocket for the first time since she met him.  It gleams metal in the lamp light.  "They're looking for me," he says simply.

" _Santa María, Madre de Dios_ ," Joey breathes, crossing herself. "You're that guy from D.C. You were _fighting_ Steve! I thought you were his friend!"

"I _am_ his friend!" James snaps.  "Look, it's a long fucking story and I don't have time to tell it now, but I swear to you, he's my friend, okay?" He shakes his head. "Look, you gotta get out of here, and I don't mean downstairs, I mean out of the building and over the fence into somebody else's house. If you stay in this building, when they come for me, you're gonna die."

Joey narrows her eyes at James. "You swear to me," she says, and she's proud of herself that her voice only shakes a little bit. "You swear to me you're not trying to hurt him."

"I swear to you on my mother's name," James replies, "and by all the angels and saints, that I am not trying to hurt him. _He is my friend._ Look."  He turns and points at a framed photograph hanging on the wall; it's of a much younger and happier-looking Steve, wearing an Army uniform and with his arm slung companionably around the shoulders of a dark-haired man who is also wearing an Army uniform.

"Oh," Joey says, looking at the picture. "That's Bucky Barnes."  She looks at it for a long moment in historical reverence, and then she freezes, turning to stare at James.  "You're Bucky Barnes."

"Yeah,"  James admits. "I am."  He takes a breath. "Now go on, you gotta get out of here."

Joey studies him carefully, looking for the lie, and she finds none.  She nods once. "Okay," she says simply. "I believe you. But I'm not going nowhere."

"Are you crazy?" James demands. "They _will_ kill you."

And Joey grins.  She holds up her hands, and she takes a deep breath, and suddenly she's wearing gloves made of bright blue and purple witchfire.  "They might try," she says firmly.

It's James's turn to stare at her in shock. "What the hell?" he asks, and then again, "What the hell?"

"I'm a mutant," Joey says. "I've got the X-gene.  It runs in my family. My mother had it.  Robby has it, too."

James blinks. "What does he do? Make ice?"

She laughs. "No. He, uh.  He's a shapeshifter.  He can turn into animals."

"Really?" James blinks. "What kind of animals?"

"Different kinds," Joey says.  "Mostly little ones, like little birds and hamsters and stuff.  Nothing big.  At least, not that I know of."  She shakes her head, waving off the discussion.  "That's not the point, anyway.  The _point_ is these guys are coming, yeah?  What are we gonna do? Have you got any kind of escape plan?"

James gives her a hard grin and stomps on a board in the middle of the floor, kicking it up and revealing a hollowed out space underneath. It's full of weaponry and something that looks like tactical gear.  He starts pulling everything out, setting it all on the floor before returning the board to its place.  "Yeah, I got a plan," he says, picking up the gear. "I'm gonna kill them all."  He turns and heads for the bedroom.  "Don't touch the guns."

When he comes back out, the ripped jeans and torn hoodie are gone, replaced by the tactical gear that she recognizes from the news footage of D.C.  She can't help but shiver a little bit at the sight of him arming himself.  He pushes his hair back in frustration several times before she says softly, "Stop."

She moves carefully behind him where he's kneeling on the floor and she says, "I'm going to touch your hair now."  She gathers it up into a short tail at the back of his head and uses the ponytail holder around her wrist to tie it up.  "There," she says.  "Now it won't be in your eyes.

He stares up at her for a long moment before saying, gruffly, "Thanks," and returning to his weaponry.


	2. Chapter 2

They're barricading the back door when Joey says, "So, maybe this is a dumb idea, but I have a suggestion."

James raises an eyebrow at her. "I'm listening."

Joey takes a deep breath. "Supposing we were to call Steve and tell him what's happening."

"No."

"Hear me out," Joey says to James's blank face.  "Look, it's not like he's not going to know something happened here the minute he decides to take a break from whatever he's doing and come home for the weekend. I mean, aside from everything else, when they come in, they're going to do some damage."

James nods reluctantly, like he can see her point.

"Right. So, I just... If you don't want to see him, I mean, I get that, the last time you guys saw each other was in D.C. so I feel like it might have been... tense."

And James actually barks out a laugh at that. "Yeah," he says. "You could say that."

"Right. But... but okay. So obviously I don't know everything that's happened to you. But I'm guessing a couple of things, okay? I'm guessing first of all it was bad, like, _muy malo_. I'm guessing second of all it was HYDRA, since, you know, the street is full of Nazi _culos_.  And since they're obviously getting ready to come in here after you and we're getting ready to fight them off, I'm guessing third of all that you didn't want to be there and you were a prisoner some way. Am I right so far?"

He reluctantly nods his head. "That don't change - "

She holds up a finger.  " _Cállate._ I'm not done."  Joey takes a deep breath.  "So the fourth thing I'm guessing is that Steve, who all the history books say was your best friend since you were little kids, has probably already put a lot of this together, because I've talked to him a few times and he's pretty smart, you know?  And I'm guessing also that maybe the reason how come Steve hasn't been here in awhile is because he's maybe out there looking for you, eh?"

James's guilty look tells her everything she needs to know. "Right. So here's what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that we call Steve, and we say, _hey, Steve, amigo, we got about twenty Nazi guys about to come piling in on us in your apartment and there's only two of us and one of us is about to piss her pants from being scared so could you maybe get one of your Avenger friends to fly over from Manhattan for a minute and help us out?_   And then we can figure the rest out from there but Jaime... I know I volunteered for this and all but I don't wanna die here, man."  She pauses, and then she adds, "Besides, you're gonna have to tell him where you are eventually. You know he won't ever stop looking.  As much as maybe you think he should, because I can see it in you, man, you know he ain't gonna.  So maybe it's time to stop hiding, hey?  You know, strategically speaking."

James studies her for a minute. "I'm gonna have to get violent with you to stop you calling him, ain't I?"

Joey smirks. "You might try," she says. "But I doubt you're fireproof."

"Fine," James says shortly. "Only you tell him not to come."

"I'll tell him," Joey replies, pulling her phone out. "But it's cute how you think he'll listen to me."

James stalks back into the living room to look out the window again; Joey slides her thumb across the screen of her phone and pulls up her contacts.  She finds Steve's number, which he gave her the last time he went out of town, in case someone should need to get in touch with him.  She wonders now if this is what he had in mind. 

The phone rings once, twice, three times, and Joey is just about to start worrying about going to voice mail when she hears Steve's voice say, " _Hello?_ "

"Steve," she says, " _dios mío,_ it's Joey, from downstairs, don't ask questions but I need a bunch of your superhero friends here fast. I'm in your apartment with your _amigo_ and there's all these FBI-looking dudes up and down the street and he says they're HYDRA."

" _HYDRA - in my apartment with - Joey, are you with **Bucky**?!_ "

"Didn't I just say that?" Joey asks. "There's not much time, Steve; I think they're waiting for sundown but that's only about half an hour from now."

" _Okay, okay, hold on just a second, Joey_." Steve's voice gets a little far away, and he's talking to someone else. " _Nat, is Clint in Brooklyn?  No?  Okay. Okay, I need you to call Stark.  Tell him Bucky's at my apartment in Brooklyn, with a civilian, and there's about to be HYDRA.  I need him on this._ "  There's a moment's silence, and then Steve's back on the line.  " _Okay, Joey, we're calling in Iron Man, he'll be there really soon to get you guys out of there, okay?_ "

"Okay. Okay, thanks, Steve."

" _Is Robby there with you?_ "

"No, no, he's safe, he's at his uncle's house."  Joey looks through the kitchen door at a snapping sound and sees James unslinging a gun. "Oh shit, looks like they're not waiting for dark after all. I gotta go, Steve."

" _Joey, wait -_ " Steve starts, but she doesn't have time. She hangs up and tosses her phone to James. "Hold that for me, man," she says. "I don't want to melt it."

James chuckles and tucks her phone away in one of his many tactical pockets, and she's satisfied that it's as safe as it can be.  "First wave's forming up across the street," James says. "They're wearing SWAT shirts, the assholes."  He shakes his head.  "Looks like five of them; easy enough."

"Sure, no problem. Steve says Iron Man is coming to evac us."

James sighs. "Yeah, okay."

"Hey, live to fight another day, man," Joey says. "Besides, I've heard Stark Tower is super-swank.  Maybe we'll get to see it."

"Incoming," James snaps, backing up quickly from the window.

The window shatters as a tiny canister bursts through it, spewing smoke.  James grabs the canister in his metal hand and throws it back out, and the door bursts open. 

James shoots; Joey flames, and the first wave falls back.  Two of them are dead, three are bleeding. All of them are on fire.  James follows them out, still shooting; Joey follows him out, still flaming.  The second wave is beginning to form up across the street; Joey catches a glimpse of old Mrs. Sandoval staring out of her upstairs window with her mouth open in shock just before she backs up through the door.

It's been awhile since she's practiced this move; she hopes she doesn't fuck it up, because that'll be _really embarrassing._

She gets a running start and barrels back out of Steve's living room, leaping off the top step and sailing out into the open air, over James's head.  Her entire body catches fire as she sails through the air, and she puts out her hands, blasting the assembled HYDRA agents with her flame. Some of them catch, and she can hear them screaming as she flies away again.  She hears James shooting and glances over to make sure he's all right, and then she concentrates on herself, throwing balls of purple flame at the scattering HYDRA agents.

And now they've given up on waves or formation; they're taking cover behind anything they can find and shooting.  Joey's just considering taking her own cover back inside the apartment when she hears the extremely distinctive sound of Iron Man's suit approaching at top speed.  " _Santa Maria, madre de Díos_ ," she whispers in gratitude, and she shoots a flare of fire up so that he can see where to come. 

To his credit, he doesn't even pause when he sees her.  Instead, he aims directly at James, who is on the ground now, having taken cover behind the stairs.  "Come on, Barnes," he shouts.  "Let's get the hell out of here."

James comes out of his protected spot and holds out his metal arm; Iron Man swoops down and grabs him by it. snatching him up into the air.  Joey follows them as they go straight up, out of range of HYDRA's guns.  "Friday," she hears Iron Man say as he shifts his grip to James's waist. "Lock down Cap's place."

The door of Steve's apartment swings shut on its own, and sheets of metal slide down over it and all the windows.  Joey blinks in surprise, and realizes that her apartment has been similarly battened down.  "That's what the new windows and doors were about!" she exclaims.

"Well, I couldn't exactly leave yours, could I?" Iron Man says reasonably. "It's a weak spot.  Like this, the whole place is secure."  He studies her for a second. "What's your flight range?  Can you make it back to Manhattan with me?"

"I don't know," Joey says honestly. "I've never tested it."

"Well, let's find out," he says.  "If you fall, I'll catch you."

*

She sputters once, about halfway there, and James makes a noise and an aborted lunge toward her, but she gets herself back under control and waves Iron Man off when he offers to reach for her.  Instead, she follows along until they reach Avengers Tower.  Iron Man lands neatly on the pad and releases James before passing through the gauntlet of machinery that removes the armor, leaving him plain old Tony Stark standing on the cement pad and staring up at her.  "Are you going to land or what?" he asks.

"No," she says. "I'm not."

He cocks his head. "Any reason why not?"

"Because she burned all her clothes off, Stark," James replies.  He pulls open one of the balcony doors and walks inside; a quick yank later and he's coming back out with an expensive-looking beige curtain in his hands.  "C'mon down, Joey," he says. "I've got you."

He holds the curtain up and out as wide as he can; she lands quickly, extinguishing her flame just before he wraps the material completely around her.  "Thanks," she says to him softly.

He gives her a smile in return - one of the first real and unguarded ones she's seen from him.  " _De nada._ "

"Well, this is touching," Stark says, and when they turn to face him, he's got one of his gauntlets back on his hand, powered up and aimed at them. "But I'm gonna need to know what's going on now, before this goes any further."

James steps in front of Joey to protect her. "She's innocent in this," he says immediately.

Joey shoves him aside.  "So are you, dumbass!"

"Bullshit," Stark interrupts. "I've seen that arm before; I know exactly who it belongs to. _Winter Soldier._ "

"Sure it does," Joey snaps. "But you don't know nothing about _who he is._ "

"It doesn't matter," James says softly. "He's right to be scared. I'm dangerous."

"Scared?" Stark exclaims. "I'm not scared of you!"

"Then why are you pointing that thing at me?" James asks, fairly reasonably.  "I'm not saying you're wrong to have it.  You're right.  I don't blame you for not trusting me.  I don't trust me.  But Joey's just a bystander in all this."

"Yeah, a bystander who shoots fire," Stark scoffs, disbelieving.

Joey swears virulently in Spanish.  "And if I was gonna burn you to death," she snaps, "why didn't I do it already?  Hmm?  I thought you were supposed to be a genius, Stark. You don't look so smart to me."

Tony's eyes narrow.  "You could be biding your time. Waiting for an opening."  She gives him a look that tells him exactly what she thinks of that proposition and he actually _winces._   "Yeah, okay, probably not.  But _him_!"

"Him nothing," Joey replies. "He's got a name. It's James. You could use it.  And besides, didn't Captain America vouch for him already? Asked you to come and help?"

"To be fair," Tony says, "he used words like _extraction_."

Joey rolls her eyes. "Steve's military. He uses words like _extraction_ when he talks about getting picked up at a club on Saturday night."

Tony boggles at her.  "Steve goes to clubs?"

" _Not the point,_ " Joey snaps.

"Can we not talk about me like I'm not here?" James asks. "I kind of got enough of that when I was being brainwashed by HYDRA on the regular."

"Sorry, _amigo_ ," Joey says.  She starts to say something else, but is interrupted by a discreet chime and an accented female voice.

"Mr. Stark," the voice says, "You asked me to warn you when Miss Potts was on her way to the penthouse."

"Thanks, Friday," Tony says.  He glares at both of them.  "Either of you makes so much as one false move..."

Joey clenches her teeth on a scream of frustration. "You know, I appreciate the extraction and all, but what is your fucking _problem_ , asshole?"

Tony points at James with his gauntleted hand. "He killed my _parents_ , that's what my problem is!"

James blinks at him.  "Your parents?" he blurts out.  "But... you're Howard Stark's son, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Tony replies, the _duh_ in his voice hanging thick in the air.

James shakes his head, and he sounds genuinely confused and regretful when he speaks.  "I didn't kill Howard Stark."

There's a long, awkward pause, and Tony's gauntleted hand wavers.  "You... you didn't?"

James shakes his head.  "No.  No, I don't think - "  He pauses, his eyes going off to the distance for just a moment, and then he refocuses on Tony, shaking his head.  "No. No, I didn't kill him.  It wasn't me.  I didn't even know he was murdered."

There's another long, awkward pause, and Tony's hand drops to his side, the gauntlet powering off.  "You didn't... You didn't know he was murdered."

James shakes his head again.  "I figured he was dead - everyone is, you know, except me and Steve.  But I didn't know he was murdered.  Was it... It was HYDRA, wasn't it?"

Tony nods. "That fucker Zola bragged about it to Steve.  I saw the footage.  It... the way he said it, he made it seem like you had done it."

"That sounds like the bullshit kind of thing that little weasel-faced asshole would do," James agrees.  "But I promise, it wasn't me."

"Oh," Tony says.  After a long pause, he adds, "Okay."

"Now that we have all of that sorted out," says a female voice from the doorway, "how about if we all step inside?"

Joey turns her head and frankly gapes at the sight of Pepper Potts standing there in the doorway wearing a power suit and six-inch stiletto heels.  She sighs.  As if she'd ever be able to pull off an outfit like that.  Pepper holds out a hand to her.  "Come on inside," she says. "Let's see if we can find you something better to wear than the living room drapes."

"Sorry about that," Joey says, stepping forward.  "I kinda burned up all my clothes."

"It's not important," Pepper replies, guiding Joey through the public sitting room and down a hallway.  "Let's see what we can find for you.  Boys," she calls behind herself, "play nicely or I'll call Steve back."

Joey shakes her head, looking up at Pepper, who's a good seven inches taller than she is in those heels.  "I doubt you have anything that fits me," she warns. "Can you even see me down here?"

Pepper laughs.  "I'm sure I can find you something."

"Lady," Joey replies, "if your size-four closet has anything at all that'll fit over my size-twenty ass, I'll eat my hat."

"Pepper," Pepper replies. "Believe it or not, I keep a wide variety of sizes stocked in the guest closet, because you honestly never know who's going to come visit and whether they might need a change of clothes.  I would be willing to bet money that I could put my hands on a change of clothes for almost anybody who came into the Tower, excepting maybe a few extremes - and if that happened, I could have something in the right size delivered within probably an hour or so."

Joey shakes her head as Pepper leads her into a well-appointed suite with the sterile feeling of a guest room.  "If that's true, you're terrifyingly well-prepared.  And I'm Joey, by the way."

Pepper laughs.  "In my line of work, Joey, I have to be."  She leads Joey into the suite's bedroom and gestures at the closet door.  "Go ahead," she says.  "See if there's anything there that fits you."

Joey nods, heading into the closet with the drape trailing behind her like a royal cape or something, and stands there in the doorway staring around at everything for probably a full fifteen seconds.  It's less of a closet and more of a tiny plus-size boutique.

She shakes her head sharply once and moves farther into the closet.  "Where do you even find this stuff?" she asks, opening a drawer to find underwear in a variety of sizes.  She steps into a pair of cotton boy-shorts and locates a bra that will handle even her copious breasts, and begins poking through the racks.

Pepper laughs from the other side of the bedroom.  "I don't," she admits. "I hire people to do it for me."

"Well thank God for whoever you've got doing it," Joey says as she finds a pair of cargo pants - _cargo pants!!!_ \- on a hanger and pulls them off.  "There's not a single caftan in here."

Pepper laughs again.  "No, I insist that my guests not be embarrassed by what I offer them to wear.  My plus-size shoppers are plus-size ladies themselves, and they keep up with body-positive fashion blogs and all the newest and hottest trends."

There's a t-shirt hanging right in front of her with Captain America's shield printed on the front.  Joey is powerless to resist.  She pulls it on and examines herself in the mirror.  The pants are a little bit long, but that's okay; she doesn't mind rolling them up a little bit.  Otherwise she looks... well, kind of perfect, if she's honest with herself.  She finds socks and shoes - the Converse only come in black, but that's all right, she'll live - and she comes out to sit down on a deacon's bench near the closet door and put them on.

"Your plus-size shoppers are amazing," Joey says frankly.  "I can't believe they found this stuff."  She looks up at Pepper.  "In all honestly, I can't quite believe you even thought of it."

And Pepper blushes.  "I'll be honest with you," she says. "I never would have thought of it if it wasn't for Darcy Lewis.  She's assistant to Dr. Jane Foster, the astrophysicist who does the work on the Bifrost."

"Oh, the Thor thing," Joey says. "Yeah, the science department at my university lost its collective mind when she came and spoke last month."

Pepper nods.  "She's brilliant," she says. "And her assistant, who is also pretty brilliant, is a very curvy young lady with a large bust.  There was an incident while they were here, just after the invasion, and I discovered that I had things that would fit Jane easily in any style she wanted, but there was nothing that would fit Darcy at all, because I had nothing over a size ten anywhere in the penthouse.  It was very embarrassing, and I am not ashamed to tell you that I do not care to be embarrassed."

"I imagine not," Joey murmurs.

Pepper grins.  "After that is when I hired my first plus-size shopper.  And you are the first person to get a chance to dig around in that closet."

"Well, whoever they are, they did a hell of a good job," Joey says. "You tell 'em I said _gracias_."

"I will do that."  Pepper moves back toward the door. "Shall we go see what kind of trouble the men have gotten into in our absence?"

"Hopefully they haven't killed each other," Joey says, standing up.  "If I let Jaime get damaged, I have a feeling Steve'll be upset with me."

"We'll hope that hasn't happened."

Fortunately it hasn't; the atmosphere in the living room they return to is a little tense, but calm.  James is sitting at the end of a sofa, looking uncomfortable, and Tony is behind the bar, pouring himself a drink.  "Hey, just in time," Tony says, waving a square bottle of brown liquor.

" _Se lo agradezco, pero no_."  Joey crosses the room and sits down beside James, looking up into his face.  "You okay, _amigo_?"

James nods. "Yeah," he says softly, reaching out and ruffling her hair with a slight smile. "I'm okay. You okay?"

" _Yo estoy perfecta_ ," Joey replies.  "You got my phone, still?"

"Yeah, here."  He pulls it out and hands it to her.

She swipes it open and thumbs her pattern across the screen.  There are several text messages and missed calls from people in the neighborhood who saw things go down and are trying to figure out what's happening.

And there's a series of texts from Robby.  _Tía Luísa called talking about crazy things happening at the house. Are you okay?_

And then _Joey, what's going on over there? Text me back._

And then _I've called you four times, why aren't you answering?_

And then _If you don't answer me back in like five minutes I'm coming over there to see what's going on._

Forty minutes have elapsed since that text was sent.

With an explosion of Spanish imprecations, Joey dials Robby's phone.  "No, no, no," she whispers as it rings and rings.  "No, no, no."

And then the line is picked up, and for just a second, Joey imagines that everything will be okay.  Until a man's voice says, "I guess I have something that belongs to you.  I'd be willing to trade it for the thing you have that belongs to me."


	3. Chapter 3

"Tell 'em you want to talk to him," Bucky murmurs, his voice low enough not to carry over the phone.  "That way you know he's still alive."

Joey nods, swallowing hard even as her heart pounds inside her chest and her hands shake.  "Put him on the phone," she says. "I want to talk to him."

"Not gonna happen," the man replies.

Joey nods, swallowing again.  Her chin firms up. "Then I assume you're a lying _hijo de puta._   You don't have him or either he's already dead, so which one is it?"

There's a long moment of silence over the line, and then the crackle of plastic, and Robby's voice.  "Tía?"

"Robby?"  Joey's hand shakes even harder as she raises a hand to wipe at the tear that's escaped her eye. "You okay, baby?"

" _Sí_ , _estoy bien_ ," he replies. " _Y tú?_ "

" _Estoy a salvo_ ," Joey assures him. "Robby, _se puede cambiar_?"

" _Sí_ ," he says again. " _Puedo conseguir lejos. ¿Dónde debo ir?_ "

"Stark Tower," Joey tells him.

Then the man is back on the phone. "That's enough of that jabber," he says.  His tone turns mocking. "Don't you know you're in America? Speak English."

Joey bites her tongue for one second - and in the background over the phone line, there's a shout.  " _Catch him! Get him! Don't let him get away!_ "

"What the fuck?" the man says. "What the fuck?!"

" _Gah! It fuckin' bit me!_ " someone shouts, and Joey grins fiercely as she listens to the chaos.

Another voice shouts, " _What the fuck is that?!_ "

Yet another says, " _Look out, look out, he's - ahh, FUCK!_ "

The man on the phone sounds hysterical when he speaks again.  "What the fuck? What the fuck, you crazy bitch?! What the fuck was that?!"

"I don't know," Joey replies.  "Sounded like a snake, and he's got a couple of those.  What color was he?"

"I don't know, fucking dark gray or something!"

Joey sucks in a breath.  Man, Robby wasn't fucking around over there, was he?  "Did you happen to get a look inside his mouth?  Was it black?"

"I don't fucking know!" the kidnapper shrieks.  "Westfahl, did it have black inside its mouth?"

" _Yeah, why? Does that matter?_ "

Joey whistles low. "You might wanna get that dude to a hospital," she says. "The black mamba's venom can kill in less than forty-five minutes."  She pauses.  "And you can leave his cell phone at my house on the way there; I don't wanna have to buy him a new one."

"You fucking Mexican whore!" the would-be kidnapper rages.  "When I find you, I'm gonna fucking rip your lungs out!"

Joey laughs softly.  " _¡Vete a la verga, culero!_ " she sings, and disconnects the call.  Then she turns to James, her eyes going wide and her hands shaking. "We got to find him," she says softly.

"He knows where you are," James replies.  "All we need to do is sit tight until he gets here."

"But he could be anywhere!" Joey exclaims, wringing her hands.  She turns toward the door. "I gotta go look for him."

James puts his hands on her shoulders, turning her back to face him.  "Joey," he says softly. "How many different things does he know how to turn into?"

Joey is still for a long moment before she admits, "A lot. I don't know."

"You wouldn't recognize him even if you saw him, is what you're saying," James says. "You wouldn't know him from a snake or a rat or a pigeon.  He could be literally anywhere in this city between here and Brooklyn and wherever they had him.  You don't even know where to start.  But _he_ knows where _you_ are, so what _you_ need to do is sit tight right here and let him come to you."

"Kinda like Cap should've sat still in Brooklyn and let you come to him, am I right, Barnes?" Tony asks softly.  "If he would've stopped chasing you, you'd have caught him?"

James gives a soft laugh, never even looking at Tony. "I've been living in his apartment for months," he says simply. "If he ever would've come home, I was right there."  He gives Joey a gentle shake. "You stay right here," he says. "Hey, you know, I bet he's starving when he gets here."

It was exactly the right thing to say: Joey's habit of caring for Robby kicked in immediately.  "Oh!" she exclaims.  "Yes, okay, okay, he's going to need to eat.  _Dios mío_ , who can I call to bring food?"

"Why don't you cook something?" James suggests gently. He turns her bodily and points.  "Look, there's a big, fancy kitchen, right over there."

"Absolutely," Pepper says, the first words she's spoken since they returned to the living room.  "Please, help yourself to anything you want to use."

Tony's eyes are gleaming. "You cook?  Really?  We might need to keep you around; nobody else around here can do much more than microwave stuff."

"Steve can cook," James protests.

"Steve can boil chicken," Tony replies.  "I prefer my food to have this fancy newfangled thing called flavor."

"Joey makes stress tamales," James explains. "I hope you've got masa."

" _Jaime!_ " Joey calls from the kitchen.  " _Ven aquí,_ I can't reach the top shelf!"

James grins and goes into the kitchen to help.  Joey has found masa, in a big, brand new bag on the top shelf of the pantry, and James gets it down, along with a kettle and another bag that looks untouched, this one containing cane sugar.  She directs him to heat water in the kettle and she moves around him, digging around in cabinets and pulling out an electric griddle, a cast-iron skillet, and a variety of other implements.

James sits on a stool on the other side of the counter and watches as she toasts some of the masa on the griddle and, in a teapot, mixes together a variety of ingredients including vanilla and cinnamon and milk.  She adds the toasted masa to this, then pours in some of the warm water and mixes it all up.  Then she pours a mug full of the mixture and pushes it across the counter to him.  "There," she says.  " _Atole_.  You drink that, you haven't eaten since this morning. I bet you're hungry."

He starts to protest, but his stomach growls.  The drink does smell good.  He lifts it to his lips and takes a drink.  The texture is odd, kind of like drinking Cream of Wheat, but it tastes good.  He drinks more of it.  Joey smiles, sets the rest of the mixture aside, and starts making tamales.

It's good work, solid and repetitive, and it keeps her mind occupied and her hands busy until Friday suddenly speaks.  "Sir, there is an approaching aircraft inbound toward the Tower landing pad. Radio signature indicates that it is a Quinjet from the upstate training facility."

"That'll be Cap," Tony says, turning toward the kitchen.  "You planning on being here to see him?"

James takes a deep breath and then shrugs. "Might as well," he says. "Been waiting on him to finally come home."

"Captain Rogers is entering the hangar elevator, along with Major Wilson," Friday reports.

Just then, a massive red-tailed hawk swoops in for a landing on the balcony just outside, backwinging gracefully and settling on the railing.  It mantles and gives a full-throated scream.  Tony looks from the elevator door, which is sliding open, to the balcony.  "Well," he says. "That's good timing for maximum chaos."

James crosses the room to the balcony door and pulls it open as Steve and Sam step out of the elevator.  He says, "Are you looking for Joey?"

The hawk screams again.

James nods. "She's inside.  But you can't come in like that."

Sam looks from Bucky to Tony.  "Is he... okay?  In the head, I mean?  Talking to that bird?"

"That bird is my nephew," Joey says, coming out of the kitchen with another mug in her hands.  "Roberto Colón, you come inside here this minute.  I've made you atole and I'm cooking tamales."

The hawk leaps forward off the railing and transforms into a teenage boy dressed in jeans and a blue hoodie.  " _Hola, Tía_ ," he says.

"Don't you _hola, Tía_ me, you good-for-nothing little mess," she replies, her voice shaking. "Get in here and drink this before I pour it over your head."

Steve darts forward and rescues the mug before she drops it when Robby lunges in and wraps his arms around her, speaking in Spanish so rapid that none of them can follow it.  She flings her own arms around him, holding him tightly, tears running down her face as she whispers back.

Steve and James make eye contact across the room.  "If you fling yourself at me," James says, "I'm going to step aside and let you go over the railing."

"You would, you jerk," Steve replies.

"Punk," Bucky accuses, a slow smile starting to form on his face.

Their embrace, in the middle of the room, is not much more restrained than Joey and Robby's, and Sam finds himself holding the mug to keep it from getting spilled all over the floor.  He looks across the room at Tony and Pepper.  "Do not even think about it, Stark," he says. "I will dump this shit in the suit's intake valve, I swear to Thor."

There's about ten minutes of full-on chaos in which Steve tries to get Bucky to go off somewhere with him and Joey tries to get Robby into the kitchen to drink his atole and eat a tamale and Sam tries to ride herd on everyone and Pepper just rolls her eyes and leaves the room.  It's finally settled when Tony sticks two fingers into his mouth and whistles like a movie doorman at a cabbie.  Everyone pauses and turns to stare at him.

"Fire Hazard," he says, "I think the tamales are burning.  Birdbrain Junior, go help your aunt.  Tin Man, Spangles, there's going to be food and you don't want to miss it, so stay here.  Birdbrain Senior, sit down, take a load off."

There's another moment of silence, and then everyone sort of moves to follow directions.  Sam grins at Tony. "Well played," he says. 

Bucky and Steve stand still in the middle of the room for a moment before deciding, without ever speaking a word out loud to each other, to step out onto the balcony for privacy's sake.  Joey and Robby make their way into the kitchen, where the first few tamales have, in fact, burned in the skillet.  "Oops," Joey says.  She pitches them out, then puts a few more in to cook.  Then she turns to Robby.  " _Mijo_ ," she says softly, taking his face in her hands, "Are you okay? Tell me the truth. Did they hurt you?"

"I'm okay, I promise," Robby replies, his voice equally soft. "They knocked me around a little but it probably won't even bruise.  Mostly they just kept trying to scare me, like, so I just played along because I didn't know where you were or if they already had you."

She smooths his hair back from his face, studying his eyes carefully for a moment.  "You're a good boy, _mijo_ ," she says finally.  "I'm glad you bit that _pendejo._ "

Robby smiles. "You're going to burn the tamales again."  Joey swears and hurries back to the stove to cook.

Half an hour or so later, there are tamales and beans and rice on platters in the middle of the table, and everyone is pulling up chairs to eat.  Conversation is light for several minutes before Tony segues from something totally random into "The floor right under Cap's is vacant; you can take that one.  If it needs remodeling, we can do that this week."

Joey blinks at him. "What?"

Tony nods. "It's no big deal.  Everybody else has a floor here; you should, too."

"Everybody else _who_?" Joey asks. "And why do I even need a floor here? I have a home."

"That you can't go back to," Tony says simply.

Joey blinks, and then turns to James. "Is he _loco_?"

James shakes his head. "Not even close," he says. "Joey, HYDRA knows who you are now.  It's not safe for you to go back there.  They know who you are and what you can do, and the next time they come, they'll come prepared for that."

"Besides," Tony adds, "We could use another flier on the team. Especially a flier that shoots fire.  Because we currently have exactly _nothing_ else on the team as cool as me, but you come close."

Robby stares.  "You... you mean, she's gonna be an Avenger?"

"If she wants to," Sam says, with a repressive glare at Tony.  "Otherwise, no."

"I wanna be an Avenger," Robby asserts.

"Over my dead body," Joey interjects.

"Aw, come on," Robby complains. "I could do it!  I can fly, too!"

"We'll talk about it when you're a little older," Sam interrupts.  "For now, your focus is going to be school.  Joey, have you thought about sending him to the Xavier School?"

Joey raises an eyebrow. "You think I can afford private school?"

"It's a school for mutants, in Westchester," Steve explains.  "Kids with the X gene, like Robby, are always welcome, and if you can't afford the tuition, you don't pay.  We could call Professor Xavier for you, if it's something you'd be interested in."

"They'd keep him safe," Tony says gently. "And train him in how to use his powers, so that if he gets caught up in a situation like this again, he wouldn't be in quite so much danger."

Robby's eyes have gotten huge throughout the conversation.  "Really?" he asks softly.  "A school for kids like me?  I could go there?"

"You'd want to?" Joey asks him.

He nods. "It'd be awesome, not having to hide," he says. "And then you wouldn't have to worry so much about me all the time. And paying for me and everything."

" _Mijo_ ," Joey chastises him. "You know I never grudge you any of that."

"I know, _Tía_ ," he says.  Then he stops, takes a slow breath, and says, "I know, Mama.  But this... this could be good for both of us.  See?  You can be an Avenger, and I can get training, and when I get grown, I can be an Avenger, too."

"Well," Joey says softly, swallowing hard and blinking against the tears in her eyes.  "We'll talk about it."  She reaches up and pats his cheek.  "Eat your tamales."


End file.
